Essay 6 • Aug 15th 2013

Photography by Rebekah Campbell

Meeting new people is like a drug for a portrait photographer. Getting to know someone; the twinkle in their eyes; exploring how the light hits their face… it's the reason they got up that morning. Portraits reveal as much about the photographer as they do about the subject. The decision to capture one moment over another results in all the nuance and delicacy, the love of a subject, you see in seasoned portraiture.

Rebekah Campbell graces us with a glimpse into that process

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Nettie came out of the forest, a flower child riding in a car from far away. I captured her for an entire day — captured in the sense of listening to her stories, her plentitude of different smiles, and her captivating demeanor all throughout her air. Picking up the pieces of a person is easier than everyone thinks it is — sit down and listen for once and you can hear the peeling away of skin and petals, and come to a divine encounter.

How unfair it is that it lasted such a short time, how can it be so that she can be here, but only for a day? How is it that animals understand us more than anything else? The scattering, the heavy–heartedness, the turning thoughts, the laughter that echoes back and forth in the tight spaces of the city, the voices as soft as a turned page. There are 2,469,501 cities in this world, and a number of wooden doorsteps… yet time allowed a meeting of good fortunes and forests to occur. She was a nymph; a delicate soul; a joyous return — and it gave way to a series like this.

Rebekah Campbell

Rebekah Campbell is a 20 year old photographer currently attending SCAD in Savannah, GA. She is enamored with people and shoots both film and digital work.